You Better Stay by Me
by Sevanadium
Summary: (Oneshot. Second part of The Uninfected, check my bio for more info) Arthur is pretty much alone until he stumbles upon Lovino, who is just as alone as he is and somehow, despite their clashing personalities, they make things work. It's a shame that trouble it about to begin brewing.


Sweat beaded on Arthur's forehead, his upper lip, slipped down the side of his face, congregated in his hair as well as his armpits, caused his shirt to cling to his chest and back and made the seams of his pants chafe uncomfortably against his thighs. Yet, even through such discomfort, all he did was dab daintily at his face with a handkerchief that needed to be washed months ago.

It wasn't his fault that he couldn't handle the heat. He much preferred fog covered streets and rain that made him feel so cold that his joints ceased to work properly. London had never been the same since the 'zombie apocalypse' had started just over five years ago.

Arthur knew exactly how long it was, five years, two months and three days. Each day had been meticulously ticked off in his journal. Even after it being true for nearly half a decade, it was still wholly unbelievable that the 'zombie apocalypse', as popularised in American fiction, had actually happened.

He whistled a tune, 'Scarborough Fair' by Simon and Garfunkel. It was a song that he grew up with, his mother played it on their old record player, among other songs that he now considered as classics.

None of the undead were in sight, but Arthur knew better than to trust his own ears. They lurked behind corners, under cars, and in any cool and damp place that their half-formed brains could find. Arthur did not have a proper weapon and had nothing other than his old cricket bat to fend off any attackers.

Not the smartest plan, but he had survived thus far and not many other people had. The grey buildings had been bleached by the insistent sun and the winding roads cracked and allowed space for a sparse spattering of plants to grow in the desert-like climate.

He needed water, his thirst caused the back of his throat to go dry and made him unable to swallow properly. The last of his water had been carelessly finished earlier that day and he regretted it. No matter how much he tried to plan into the future, it did not work. He would drop the bottle and the lid would pop off, causing precious water to leak all over the dusty ground. Or he would drop his bounty in favour of fleeing for his life.

The moral of his life, was to never take anything good at face value. Something bad was always bound to happen if he didn't wait with bated breath for his luck to swiftly turn and take a nosedive into the category of unlucky.

His cricket bat dragged along the floor, he didn't want to put in the effort to lift it off the ground. The cricket bat used to be the same one that he would play the sport with while in high school. That had been eons ago. He was now twenty-three and he had given up the sport in his last year of school – the same year that the world changed irreversibly.

Maybe he could train the zombies to play a good game. Sure, they would be a bit on the slow side and had less coordination than himself during a hangover, but it would pass the time. Then again, maybe not. For starters, Arthur didn't know the first thing about zombie training. There was also the fact that they would try to go for his arse, and not in the perverted way.

He sighed. The city had once been bustling with life and people scurrying from one place to another, shielding themselves from the rain with brightly coloured umbrellas and rain jackets. Now it was a ghost town. Arthur felt lonely, he had yet to come across other survivors and wished that he had someone else to to talk to other than Flying Mint Bunny and Tinker. He was sure that he had made them up in an attempt to keep himself sane.

A scuffling sound yanked his thought process to a stop, much like a puppet being jerked around on a string, and urged his attention to go towards the next turn off in the road. If it was a zombie, Arthur was ready to turn and pull a roadrunner as he pumped his legs as fast as he could and carried himself in the opposite direction.

But a small part of his mind ceased the flight reaction that occurred within. He trusted his instincts to not lead him into a trap, and thus he stopped. Arthur's limbs still shook and his knees felt like jelly, but he wasn't going to let his bodily reactions get the better of him, like they had done so many times before when he felt his legs grow warm as his bladder emptied and his heart stop while one of the undead shuffled their way towards him.

His mouth felt impossibly dry at that moment and after a few tries, he managed to swallow. Arthur gripped the cricket bat with both hands, the sweat already rendering the grip useless, and waited. Nothing came from behind the corner. Maybe it had just been a trick of his imagination, but no, he had heard a distinct noise and he would wait it out, whatever it was.

Arthur lifted the bat and the weight gave him some comfort. If he swung it at an attacker it would leave them stunned for a few seconds at least, even with his abysmal strength. His breath hitched and he could feel his heart attempting to escape through his throat.

A shadow grew as whatever it was walked along the street. It was definitely human. The gait of the walk was too natural and the lanky form of the shadow showed a well composed person with short hair and a wild curl that flew off to the side of their head and bounced with every step. They were also alone, just like Arthur.

They turned the corner and Arthur was met with an angel. Shaggy brown hair, and dull green eyes were accented by a stubble that had been a few days in the making. Disheveled clothes were ripped and patched in many places and the man's hands were wound tightly around a long wooden plank.

"H-hello?" Arthur asked. His voice raspy from disuse and dehydration.

The man stopped dead in his tracks and regarded Arthur with a critical eye. Moments passed between them and Arthur was wholly unsure of whether the man had heard him or not. He was about to speak again when the man finally answered.

"Thank God, you're not one of them." The relief was evident in his voice.

"I'm quite sure of that. What are you even doing here?" Arthur still didn't relinquish his grip on the cricket bat.

"Same as you, idiot. I'm surviving," the man replied. He looked to be about the same age as Arthur.

Arthur snorted. "Obviously. I'm Arthur." He introduced himself in hopes that the man would not prove to be hostile after all.

"Lovino, Lovino Vargas," the man replied curtly.

"I've never heard of the name Lovino before." Arthur let his weapon lower slightly.

Lovino rested his against the road and leaned on it. "Of course you haven't. Anyways, what are you doing?"

"I'm surviving, same as you," Arthur repeated what Lovino had just said.

"No need to say it, Captain Obvious. What I mean is, where are you going? Are you going to where there are other people or somewhere else?" There was venom behind his words and Lovino's eyes shifted dangerously.

"I'm looking for water. Unfortunately, I don't know of any other survivors. You're the first I've seen in years." Arthur swallowed again with much effort.

"Years?" Lovino's eyebrows lifted into perfect arches. He dug in the messenger bag he carried with him and held out a bottle of water. "I'll let you have this. If you agree to help me."

Arthur tried to grab the bottle and Lovino pulled it back. "After you agree," he said.

The water sparkled in the sunshine and reminded Arthur of a swimming pool because of the blue plastic. He was thirsty enough to agree with nearly anything but a small part of his mind pulled the reins back, and stopped him from agreeing long enough to ask:

"What do you want me to do?"

Lovino's face reddened. Arthur couldn't decide if it was from the sun or from embarrassment. "I'll give it to you if you, if you, if you-would-stay-with-me-so-that-I-don't-have-to-be-alone," he blurted out.

Arthur laughed from shock. "That's all you want? I'm sure I can quite easily fulfill that. I've been looking for company for a while now myself." He slapped his hand against the water bottled and tightened his grip. Lovino let go and it swung to his side.

He opened the lid and the plastic connectors popped deliciously as they broke. Arthur let the lid drop to the floor as he tipped the bottle to his lips and drank. Even using all of his willpower, he couldn't slow down his sips more than a small bit, but he did manage to take the bottle from his mouth at just under the halfway mark.

His breaths were ragged and they stood in silence as Arthur acclimatised to the full feeling in his stomach and the rawness at the back of his throat. If felt good and Arthur lifted the bottle and rolled it against his forehead, careful not to spill any of the precious liquid, and relished in the coolness it brought to his lobster red skin.

"Are you done making perverted noises because of a water bottle? Because I would really like to get going." Lovino put his hands on his hips and glared at Arthur. His skin was a golden brown, like honey being drizzled over rye bread.

Arthur's stomach grumbled, he also needed to find something to eat. He did have a few cans of food in his shelter, but he was sick of baked beans every day and longed for a change. He let the water bottle drop to his side.

"We can go now. I know of a place to get water and food. I'm not sure it it'll be safe though." Arthur scanned the ground for the lid he had thoughtlessly dropped.

Lovino snorted. "Does it look like we're safe here or anywhere for that matter? Especially you? You're an idiot for running out of water in this heat. What would you have done if I weren't here to swoop in and save your day? Keeled over and become food?" His hands waved generously with every point he made.

"It was a mistake, I know. There's no need to berate me about it. You don't even have a proper weapon. Can you even lift that plank?" Arthur bent and picked up the lid. Lovino didn't look that strong. His sleeves only reached the top of his shoulder and highlighted the thin, effeminate arms that belonged to the man.

"Says the man who has a cricket bat as a weapon. What are you going to do? Try see if you can score a home run and while they watch the ball fly, you'll leg it?"

Arthur pursed his lips. "That's baseball, spaghetti for brains."

A groan from behind Arthur stopped him from continuing on with his tirade. Lovino's eyes widened and his grip around the plank tightened enough to turn his knuckles white. Arthur swung himself around and saw the zombie, a female with long, jagged hair and glassy eyes shuddered it's way towards them and stretched out its hand.

"One the count of three we'll run," Arthur said between his teeth. His heart thumped against his chest and he wasn't sure if his limbs would move when he told them to.

He saw Lovino nod in his peripheral vision.

"One," Arthur began. His left foot skidded along the grit on the road as he readied himself.

"Two," Lovino continued. Arthur could no longer see him due to the way that he stood.

"Three!" They said together and began their mad dash. The plank that Lovino held echoed loudly as he dropped it against the ground and Arthur cursed him, as well as he could while in a full sprint, for being so stupid. It would only attract more zombies.

Lovino ran faster than Arthur and in order to keep up, Arthur tossed his cricket bat towards a pub called the Fork 'n Pub. His mind idly noted the name in case he would come back at a later point to fetch it. The cricket bat did have sentimental meaning to him.

They had only been running for short while and Arthur already struggled to draw in air. His calf burned – he had landed on it wrong a few days ago and it still twinged whenever he walked. He pushed himself, the zombie had been long left behind but neither he nor Lovino were going to take any chances.

Lovino was still ahead of him and he forced himself to increase his pace. He thought about the zombie losing the lethargy of the day time and sprinting towards him as night fell, and he noticed himself closing the distance between himself and Lovino.

There was no sound other than their pounding feet and heavy breathing. The terror that had once driven them wild had now abated to a mild panic and Arthur felt thankful when Lovino slowed to a jog and allowed Arthur to catch up.

They continued like that, with no words shared between them until they reached a small apartment building. It was no more than four floors, and the front door was well barricaded, including the windows on the first two floors.

It was here that Lovino slowed to a walk. Arthur kept the same speed as him, his limbs were so tired that they no longer felt heavy and he was sure that he could walk forever without stopping due to the momentum that they now carried.

He followed Lovino to a back door and marveled as the lithe man used an old car to vault himself onto the fire escape – the ladder had not been let down and was still tucked away.

"Do you want a hand up?" Lovino asked in a mocking tone.

Arthur looked at the height of the fire escape, and despite wanting to decline the help, he accepted it readily. He lifted himself onto the roof of the car and gratefully took Lovino's helping hand.

"It's a good thing that they can't climb, isn't it?" Arthur said.

"It is. Now hurry up, I don't want to be standing out here all day." Lovino turned and headed up the stairs.

Arthur followed. His heart stopped every time the fire escape swayed, or creaked, or did anything that was not something that solid ground would do, meaning a lot. Lovino climbed into a window on the third floor and Arthur did the same, his foot catching on the frame as he did so, and nearly tripping him in the process.

"Was this your apartment before?" Arthur asked. He spun in a circle and took in the décor. Terracotta walls and mahogany couches, cream carpets with coffee stains, and a small stock of food and water in the spotless and modern-looking kitchen. It gave off a warm atmosphere unlike Arthur's sparsely furnished house with peeling wallpaper and termite infested ceilings.

"My brother and I owned it. I planned to go to university in London while he finished off his schooling." Lovino swallowed, unable to continue.

Arthur could understand. "I'm sorry." He didn't want to ask about what happened to Lovino's brother in case it dredged up memories that were meant to stay buried underneath the mindless monotony of trying to stay alive.

"Why are you sorry? None of this is your fault. I don't even know what happened to him, Feli could be fine for all I know."

The tension in Lovino's shoulders and the endless shifting of his eyes from one spot of the room to another, told Arthur that he did not believe what he said. Was that why he stayed in a dingy apartment with more ways for a zombie to enter than holes in a colander?

"I'm sure he's fine. Would you like me to stay with you tonight? Because it's getting late, not because you look lonely. I, er, I'm stumbling over my words, aren't I? What do you say then?" Arthur asked.

"I'll let you stay, just because it's getting late and I don't want you getting killed or anything like that. Not because I'm lonely." The glare Lovino sent him wasn't as harsh as the ones he has sent towards him throughout the course of the afternoon.

Arthur chuckled and ignored Lovino's questioning glance. "How about we make some tea? I've got a few bags on me," Arthur suggested.

"Go ahead and drink your leaf flavoured water. I'll be having coffee, no milk, no sugar. Make it strong." Lovino let himself fall onto the couch and put his feet up on a table.

Arthur was left with no choice but to head into the kitchen and do things himself. After some scrounging he was able to find a steel kettle and the instant coffee. It took a while longer before he finally came across a gas cooker. He could find no other way of heating up the water so it was what he used.

A few minutes later he returned to the lounge with two mugs. Neither of them had sugar or milk. Both items were long since spoiled and even tea had lost its original taste. Arthur had never been a coffee drinker, and did not know how instant coffee had fared over the years.

Lovino took his cup and set it on the end table while Arthur sat gingerly in a two-seater couch and cradled the mug in his hands. The gentle scent of Earl Grey wafted up and into his nose. It had been a while since he had made tea and he enjoyed the experience.

"So what stuff do you have where you live?" Lovino asked coarsely.

Arthur swallowed his sip of scalding tea. "I don't have much, but I have some blankets, non-perishable food, and solar panels. I don't have much water though." Arthur gave a hollow laugh.

Lovino perked up when Arthur said 'solar panels'. "Solar panels. Do you have electricity where you live?"

"I do."

"I haven't seen a electric light since the grid turned off," Lovino admitted.

"I don't use the lights often, just the kettle and stove for cooking," Arthur said. The world was in such a pitiful state for someone to be able to admit that they hadn't seen electricity at work in nearly five years. He shuddered to think about the state that third world countries were in, with their minimal medical care and lack of proper amenities.

Lovino picked up his mug and took a sip. He grimaced at the taste and then took another sip. "Do you think you could move the solar panels here?" he asked.

Arthur shook his head. "I can't. If you want you're always welcome to come to my house. You seem like the kind of bloke that can be trusted." He tipped back the last of his tea and rested his mug on his knee.

"There's not much choice, is there?" Lovino huffed.

Arthur bit the inside of his cheek before letting it go, it was a bad habit that he used to have and he was not going to let himself get back into it. He already bit his nails to the nail beds and kept them short enough for the tips of his fingers to begin raising where his nail was supposed to grow.

"Not at all. Us living people need to stick together, don't we?" Arthur asked.

They sat in the lounge for a few minutes longer. Once Lovino finished his coffee Arthur took their mugs to the kitchen and put them next to the sink after Lovino told him that they wouldn't wash them just yet as they could reuse them later.

They got started on dinner next. Lovino grimaced as he open one of the cupboards only to find a face full of canned food. Arthur assumes that the other cupboards were in a similar state.

"I would never eat this." Lovino held a can of canned spaghetti in his hand, trying to touch it with the least amount of skin possible.

"Have you ever had canned spaghetti on a sandwich. That's fine dining right there." A smirk lit up Arthur's face as he watched Lovino's contort into one of pure disgust.

Still he put the can onto the counter followed by another one. Arthur carried the gas cooker to Lovino who tilted his head towards a patch of floor that had a crate set upside down. The words 'oranges' were printed in block letters on its side.

"Why do you eat this if you don't like it?" He asked once they had both cans in a pot over the gas cooker.

Lovino stirred the canned spaghetti slowly. "Does it look like I'm able to cook what I please? It's either eat this crap or starve."

Arthur nodded. "Maybe we could start a farm, just a small one. We might be able to get us some ingredients then."

"Yeah and we'll find some cows and chickens waltzing through the streets of London with a big sign saying 'eat me'," Lovino said. He turned off the cooker and shared the canned spaghetti back into the cans they had come from.

Arthur took his can, along with a spoon. "You could have heated each can individually to save the effort of halving both," he suggested.

"It's rude to begin eating before someone else and this stupid stuff gets cold within minutes."

They ate in silence. Arthur quite enjoyed the taste of the canned spaghetti after weeks of baked beans. Lovino, not so much. He seemed to choke down every mouthful and Arthur nearly asked him if he wanted to cook something more appetising at one point.

Arthur chucked the empty cans into the sink. They would wash them in the morning and keep them for some or other use. Be it a drinking cup or to hang a piece of string between them and pretend they had a working telephone, it was uncertain.

Darkness had begun to descend.

"Do you have any candles you want to light before it gets too dark to see?" Arthur asked.

Lovino shook his head, his eyes seemed to glow in the dusky light. "I'm not wasting a candle just so we can have a chat. We can do that in the dark if you have to."

"Alright. Where do you want me to sleep? Because I don't want to kick you out of your bed. Maybe I'll take the couch?" Arthur fiddled with the zipper on a scatter cushion. 

"Are you stupid? I have a double bed, we can share. It gets cold at night and I don't want to get rid of your frozen body in the morning," Lovino growled out.

Arthur couldn't stop the smile from forming on his face. Lovino had warmed up to him. "Alright. You better not snore. I used to know someone who had the most horrendous snores that sounded like a balloon deflating."

Francis was someone he had not seen since well before the apocalypse. Not that Arthur missed him all that much.

"I promise I don't snore, but I do kick." Arthur could barely make out Lovino's quirked eyebrow in the dark.

"I think I can handle that."

A year later the morning dawned on them, hot and sticky. Arthur woke up first, as he did every morning and lay there for a few moments in the post-dawn silence. No birds sang and the only noise he could hear was Lovino's gentle breathing.

He slowly untangled himself from Lovino's clinging limbs and got out of the bed. His hair was plastered to his face and he already felt like he had run a marathon. The days seemed to be getting hotter and hotter with every passing year.

His feet carried him to the kitchen and he absently began to fill the kettle and put it on the stove. After a few weeks and much convincing, Arthur had gotten Lovino to move in with him instead of staying in his old apartment.

Lovino had written a note for Feliciano in case he ever returned and after that he left with no regrets.

The kettle whistled and Arthur took it off the stove. Two cups sat next to the sink – the same ones that they used every single time Arthur had tea and Lovino had coffee. He dumped the required stuff into each mug and filled them with water. The bubbling of the water as it poured in soothed him.

He took the coffee to their bedroom while he let his tea steep. Lovino was awake and sat in bed with bleary eyes and a scowl on his face.

"Good morning," Arthur said and passed the cup to him.

Lovino took it. "Yeah, Same thing back."

Arthur sat on the edge of the bed. He didn't quite remember when their relationship had stopped being people who pretended they liked each other just so that they wouldn't be lonely, and turned into something else. What he did remember is how neither him, nor Lovino opposed it at all, and were quite happy to make the change.

He wouldn't class them as romantically involved, whatever they had between them didn't deserve a label as it didn't fit into one. Arthur loved Lovino, with all his heart, but he had never said the words or come close to even saying them even once.

Lovino felt the same way, Arthur felt certain of that. His hand rested upon Lovino's, their fingers weren't intertwined, but more intimate than if they were not touching at all.

"What shall we do today?" Arthur asked. He looked around the room. Sunlight came in through the window and brightened the brown-grey walls Lovino insisted he change them to after he had seen the previously white walls for the first time. On the dresser, an assortment of personal products were scattered and above them a fan swung lazily. It was far too domestic to have come from any world where the zombie apocalypse had occurred.

"I don't know." Lovino took another sip of his coffee. Arthur would have to fetch his own tea soon. Unless he wanted it to become far too strong and lose all its heat.

"We could try and find a board game. Maybe monopoly, you liked that one? Arthur suggested.

Lovino sent an 'are you kidding me' glare his way. "Last time we played monopoly you went power hungry and your only goal was to have every single fifty thousand note under your control. That's why I threw it out the window in case you don't remember."

"Oh. Well, I promise you that I won't be like that this time."

Lovino put his coffee mug down. "What about we do nothing, and you stay with me. It's not like we have anyone waiting for us." He slunk down in the bed until he was fully lying down.

"That sounds like a good idea." Arthur went to fetch his tea. Once he returned he set the tea down and got onto the bed. "Take the covers off will you? It's like a furnace in here."

Lovino grumbled and yanked the blanket out from under Arthur and onto the floor. The mattress felt delightfully cold beneath them.

"I wish that we had something to do other than focus on surviving," Arthur mused.

"We can always try to clear London and set up a safe zone. The space we have isn't large enough for my tomatoes.

"That would take a lot of work but it may be a project that will get us from day to day. Why don't we start small. We can work on clearing the surrounding buildings." Arthur drew invisible patterns in the air in front of him using his finger.

"And what it the creatures get back in? Why am I always the one pointing out the flaws in your stupid plans," Lovino said.

Alfred mulled it over for a second. "We can tie a string around the buildings at about hip length and it'll catch any zombie that dares venture through.

"They can climb at night. We've seen in before." Lovino shot down Arthur's idea.

And they had seen it. A zombie that barely reached the height of Arthur's twelve-year-old-at-the-start-of-the-apocalypse cousin, Peter, climb up and over a chain link fence as if it were nothing but a few steps. Arthur had also witnessed a zombie struggle to get its foot out of a shallow pothole during the day time. Seems that not all zombies were created equally.

"We'll figure out something, won't we? And if we die before it gets completed I'm sure that someone will come along eventually and complete it for us. I'll make sure that you have a large garden where you can plant whatever you want and I'll devote an entire apartment to being a library."

"That sounds nice." Lovino's eyes drooped despite the coffee he had drunk just moments prior. "Continue."

"And I'll install solar panels for more power. We'll build tall walls around our haven using cement and bricks, high enough so that no zombie will be able to scale it, and the only way in or out would be through a gate that only a car would be able to pull open."

Arthur continued to talk about his plans to keep them entertained for the next few years. His mouth running at a mile a minute as his brain shot from idea to idea. The idea of defacing foggy old London both excited and terrified him at the same time. They wouldn't have to worry about clearing cars at least, as most of the cars had evacuated the city in a mad dash to get out, leaving streets that resembled a ghost town and a large playground for any survivors, and the zombies.

Arthur smiled gently. As with the overused saying, Lovino looked peaceful in his sleep. He didn't scowl, or glare, and his features were ironed into an expression of neutrality, punctuated by the odd twitch.

As gently as he could, he pulled Lovino into his arms and closed his eyes. It didn't matter if they slept in, now did it?


End file.
